10537 - LOU REED - THE SIRE YEARS: COMPLETE ALBUMS BOX, DISC FIVE (2015)
LOU REED
''THE SIRE YEARS: COMPLETE ALBUMS BOX, DISC FIVE (PERFECT NIGHT: LIVE IN LONDON)''
OCTOBER 30 2015
**********
DISC ONE (NEW YORK) (1989) (56:58)
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
New York City figured so prominently in Lou Reed's music for so long that it's surprising it took him until 1989 to make an album simply called New York, a set of 14 scenes and sketches that represents the strongest, best-realized set of songs of Reed's solo career. While Reed's 1982 comeback, The Blue Mask, sometimes found him reaching for effects, New York's accumulated details and deft caricatures hit bull's-eye after bull's-eye for 57 minutes, and do so with an easy stride and striking lyrical facility. New York also found Reed writing about the larger world rather than personal concerns for a change, and in the beautiful, decaying heart of New York City, he found plenty to talk about -- the devastating impact of AIDS in "Halloween Parade," the vicious circle of child abuse "Endless Cycle," the plight of the homeless in "Xmas in February" -- and even on the songs where he pointedly mounts a soapbox, Reed does so with an intelligence and smart-assed wit that makes him sound opinionated rather than preachy -- like a New Yorker. And when Reed does look into his own life, it's with humor and perception; "Beginning of a Great Adventure" is a hilarious meditation on the possibilities of parenthood, and "Dime Store Mystery" is a moving elegy to his former patron Andy Warhol. Reed also unveiled a new band on this set, and while guitarist Mike Rathke didn't challenge Reed the way Robert Quine did, Reed wasn't needing much prodding to play at the peak of his form, and Ron Wasserman proved Reed's superb taste in bass players had not failed him. Produced with subtle intelligence and a minimum of flash, New York is a masterpiece of literate, adult rock & roll, and the finest album of Reed's solo career.
1 Romeo Had Juliette 03:10
2 Halloween Parade 03:33
3 Dirty Blvd. 03:29
4 Endless Cycle 04:03
5 There Is No Time 03:46
6 Last Great American Whale 03:42
7 Beginning Of A Great Adventure 04:57 (Mike Rathke, Lou Reed)
8 Busload Of Faith 04:50
9 Sick Of You 03:26
10 Hold On 03:25
11 Good Evening Mr. Waldheim 04:36
12 Xmas In February 02:57
13 Strawman 05:54
14 Dime Store Mystery 05:04
Tracks By Lou Reed, Except 7
Dion/Guest Artist
Fred Maher/Drums, Guest Artist, Guitar
Mike Rathke/Guitar
Lou Reed/Guitar, Vocals
Maureen Tucker/Drums, Guest Artist, Percussion
Rob Wasserman/Bass Guitar, Guest Artist
**********
DISC TWO (LOU REED/JOHN CALE: SONGS FOR DRELLA) (1990) (54:55)
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
John Cale, the co-founder of The Velvet Underground, left the group in 1968 after tensions between himself and Lou Reed became intolerable; neither had much charitable to say about one other after that, and they seemed to share only one significant area of agreement -- they both maintained a great respect and admiration for Andy Warhol, the artist whose patronage of the group helped them reach their first significant audience. So it was fitting that after Warhol's death in 1987, Reed and Cale began working together for the first time since White Light/White Heat on a cycle of songs about the artist's life and times. Starkly constructed around Cale's keyboards, Reed's guitar, and their voices, Songs for Drella is a performance piece about Andy Warhol, his rise to fame, and his troubled years in the limelight. Reed and Cale take turns on vocals, sometimes singing as the character of Andy and elsewhere offering their observations on the man they knew. On a roll after New York, Reed's songs are strong and pithy, and display a great feel for the character of Andy, and while Cale brought fewer tunes to the table, they're all superb, especially "Style It Takes" and "A Dream," a spoken word piece inspired by Warhol's posthumously published diaries. If Songs for Drella seems modest from a musical standpoint, it's likely neither Reed nor Cale wanted the music to distract from their story, and here they paint a portrait of Warhol that has far more depth and poignancy than his public image would have led one to expect. It's a moving and deeply felt tribute to a misunderstood man, and it's a pleasure to hear these two comrades-in-arms working together again, even if their renewed collaboration was destined to be short-lived.
1 Smalltown 02:03
2 Open House 04:17
3 Style It Takes 02:54
4 Work 02:37
5 Trouble With Classicists 03:41
6 Starlight 03:28
7 Faces And Names 04:12
8 Images 03:30
9 Slip Away (A Warning) 03:05
10 It Wasn't Me 03:30
11 I Believe 03:18
12 Nobody But You 03:45
13 A Dream 06:33
14 Forever Changed 04:51
15 Hello It's Me 03:04
All Tracks By John Cale & Lou Reed
John Cale/Keyboards, Performer, Viola, Vocals
Lou Reed/Guitar, Performer, Vocals
**********
DISC THREE (MAGIC AND LOSS) (1992) (58:35)
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
With 1982's The Blue Mask, Lou Reed began approaching more mature and challenging themes in his music, and in 1992, Reed decided it was time to tackle the Most Serious Theme of All -- Death. Reed lost two close friends to cancer within the space of a year, and the experience informed Magic and Loss, a set of 14 songs about loss, illness, and mortality. It would have been easy for a project like this to sound morbid, but Reed avoids that; the emotions that dominate these songs are fear and helplessness in the face of a disease (and a fate) not fully understood, and Reed's songs struggle to balance these anxieties with bravery, humor, and an understanding of the notion that death is an inevitable part of life -- that you can't have the magic without the loss. It's obvious that Reed worked on this material with great care, and Magic and Loss contains some of his most intelligent and emotionally intense work as a lyricist. However, Reed hits many of the same themes over and over again, and while Reed and his accompanists -- guitarist Mike Rathke, bassist Rob Wasserman, and percussionist Michael Blair -- approach the music with skill and impeccable chops, many of these songs are a bit samey; the album's most memorable tunes are the ones that pull it out of its mid-tempo rut, like the grooving "What's Good" and the guitar workout "Gassed and Stoked." Magic and Loss is an intensely heartfelt piece of music, possessing a taste and subtlety one might never have expected from Reed, but its good taste almost works against it; it's a sincere bit of public mourning, but perhaps a more rousing wake might have been a more meaningful tribute to the departed.
1 Dorita (The Spirit) 01:07
2 What's Good (The Thesis) 03:21
3 Power And Glory 04:23 (Mike Rathke, Lou Reed)
4 Magician (Internally) 06:23
5 Sword Of Damocles (Externally) 03:42
6 Goodby Mass (In A Chapel Bodily Termination) 04:25
7 Cremation (Ashes To Ashes) 02:54
8 Dreamin' (Escape) 05:09 (Mike Rathke, Lou Reed)
9 No Chance (Regret) 03:15
10 Warrior King (Revenge) 04:27
11 Harry's Circumcision (Reverie Gone Astray) 05:28
12 Gassed And Stoned (Loss) 04:18 (Mike Rathke, Lou Reed)
13 Power And Glory, Pt. 2 02:57 (Mike Rathke, Lou Reed)
14 Magic And Loss (Summation) 06:39 (Mike Rathke, Lou Reed)
Tracks By Lou Reed, Except 3, 8, 12, 13, 14
Michael Blair/Drums, Percussion, Vocals (Background)
Roger Moutenot/Vocals (Background)
Mike Rathke/Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Guitar (Synthesizer)
Lou Reed/Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Vocals, Vocals (Background)
James Scott/Vocals (Background)
Rob Wasserman/Bass (Electric), Guitar (Electric)
**********
DISC FOUR (SET THE TWILIGHT REELING) (1996) (50:57)
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
After contemplating the decline of New York City, the passing of his mentor Andy Warhol, his place in (perhaps) the greatest American rock band of all time, and the very nature of life and death, in 1996 Lou Reed finally began to consider a really important subject -- where to get a good chocolate egg cream. "Egg Cream" kicked off Set the Twilight Reeling, and for many fans it was a kick to hear Reed cranking up his amps and having some fun again, but much of the rest of the album turned out not to be as lightweight as the opener would have led you to expect. On Set the Twilight Reeling, Reed is preoccupied with relationships, as he tries to figure if he wants a long-term commitment ("Trade In"), if he's better off as a lone wolf ("NYC Man"), if he's in love ("The Proposition"), or if he just wants to fool around ("Hookywooky"). Reed rocks a lot harder here than on the two albums that preceded it (and plays plenty of great crunchy guitar), but much of the album is set in a mellow mid-tempo groove that's casual and comfortable but not especially compelling. And while "Sex With Your Parents (Motherfucker), Pt. II" is an amusing attack on conservative politicians, his logic isn't exactly clear. Longtime fans are no doubt grateful that Reed's relatively unfocused and unsubstantial albums these days are such a vast improvement over his fallow period in the 1970s, but for the most part Set the Twilight Reeling sounds like a standard issue 1990s Lou Reed album -- smart, well-crafted, with plenty of guitar, but nothing terribly special, either.
1 Egg Cream 05:18
2 NYC Man 04:56
3 Finish Line 03:24
4 Trade In 04:59
5 Hang On To Your Emotions 03:46
6 Sex With Your Parents (Motherfucker) Part II (Live) 03:37
7 Hookywooky 04:19
8 The Proposition 03:27
9 Adventurer 04:17
10 Riptide 07:47
11 Set The Twilight Reeling 05:04
All Tracks By Lou Reed
Laurie Anderson/Guest Artist, Vocals (Background)
Roy Bittan/Percussion, Piano
Mino Cinelu/Percussion
Tony Fitzpatrick
Russell Gunn/Horn
Oliver Lake/Arranger, Guest Artist, Horn, Horn Arrangements
J.D. Parran/Horn
Lou Reed/Guitar, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Fernando Saunders/Fretless Bass, Guest Artist, Guitar (Acoustic), Vocals (Background)
Thunder Smith/Drum Programming, Drums, Paiste Cymbals, Pearl Drums, Vocals (Background)
**********
DISC FIVE (PERFECT NIGHT: LIVE IN LONDON) (1998) (66:33)
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
By 1997, the "Unplugged" craze, in which nearly every rocker under the sun decided to look back on their songbook with tasteful and unamplified maturity, had just about run its course, but that wasn't about to stop Lou Reed from belatedly trying the same gimmick for his performance at London's 1997 Meltdown Music Festival. Reed's semi-acoustic performance was also prompted by the latest bit of electronic gimmickry to catch his fancy, a special feedback-defeating pickup system that gave his acoustic guitar "the sound of diamonds" (Reed's phrase). While it's difficult to say just what a diamond is supposed to sound like, it is true that his guitar sounds quite good on this set. Reed and his band approach the respectfully quiet arrangements with precision and no small amount of enthusiasm (especially bassist Fernando Saunders), and Lou is in unusually good voice here; one of the traditional failings of his live albums has been that he doesn't always sing and play well at the same time, but here he hit his marks with ease. However, you've got to wonder about the choice of material on Perfect Night; if Reed really intended this to be an overview of the breadth of his career, he wasn't doing himself any favors by throwing in "Vicious," "Original Wrapper," or "Sex With Your Parents," while "Kicks" and "Riptide" aren't especially well-served by stripping them of their electric guitars. There are enough good tracks here ("I'll Be Your Mirror," "Perfect Day," and "New Sensations") to indicate that Reed might have a good acoustic album in him, but before he tries something like Perfect Night again, he ought to sit down with some friends who can edit a better set list for him.
1 I'll Be Your Mirror 03:18
2 Perfect Day 03:56
3 The Kids 04:26
4 Vicious 05:40
5 Busload Of Faith 04:27
6 Kicks 04:16
7 Talking Book 03:51
8 Into The Divine 03:34
9 Coney Island Baby 06:10
10 New Sensations 06:07
11 Why Do You Talk 02:39
12 Riptide 04:13
13 Original Wrapper 04:48
14 Sex With Your Parents (Motherfucker) Part II 02:56
15 Dirty Blvd. 06:06
All Tracks By Lou Reed
Mike Rathke/Guitar
Lou Reed/Guitar, Vocals
Fernando Saunders/Bass Guitar, Vocals
Thunder Smith/Drums, Vocals
**********
DISC SIX (ECSTASY) (2000) (77:27)
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
Never let it be said that Lou Reed has lost the ability to surprise his audience; who would have thought that at the age of 58, on his first album of the new millennium, Reed would offer us an 18-minute guitar distortion workout with lyrics abut kinky sex, dangerous drugs, and (here's the surprise) imagining what it would be like to be a possum? For the most part, Ecstasy finds Reed obsessed with love and sex, though (as you might expect) his take on romance is hardly rosy ("Paranoia Key of E," "Mad," and "Tatters" all document a relationship at the point of collapse, while "Baton Rouge" is an eccentric but moving elegy for a love that didn't last) and Eros is usually messy ("White Prism"), obsessive ("Ecstasy"), or unhealthy and perverse ("Rock Minuet"). Reed genuinely seems to be stretching towards new lyrical and musical ground here, but while some of his experiments work, several pointedly do not, with the epic "Like a Possum" only the album's most spectacular miscalculation. Still, Reed and producer Hal Wilner take some chances with the arrangements that pay off, particularly the subtle horn charts that dot several songs, and Reed's superb rhythm section (Fernando Saunders on bass and Tony "Thunder" Smith on drums) gives these songs a rock-solid foundation for the leader's guitar workouts. As Reed and his band hit fifth gear on the album's rousing closer, "Big Sky," he once again proves that even his uneven works include a few songs you'll certainly want to have in your collection -- as long as they're not about possums.
1 Paranoia Key Of E 04:28
2 Mystic Child 05:01
3 Mad 04:29
4 Ecstasy 04:25
5 Modern Dance 04:10
6 Tatters 05:55
7 Future Farmers Of America 03:02
8 Turning Time Around 04:24
9 White Prism 04:00
10 Rock Minuet 06:57
11 Baton Rouge 04:54
12 Like A Possum 18:03
13 Rouge 01:01
14 Big Sky 06:32
All Tracks By Lou Reed
Don Alias/Percussion
Laurie Anderson/Guest Artist, Viola (Electric)
Steven Bernstein/Horn Arrangements, Trumpet
Mike Rathke/Guitar
Lou Reed/Guitar, Percussion, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Fernando Saunders/Arranger, Bass, Guest Artist, Vocals (Background)
Jane Scarpantoni/Cello
Paul Shapiro/Sax (Tenor)
Thunder Smith/Drums, Percussion, Vocals (Background)
Doug Wieselman/Sax (Baritone), Sax (Tenor)
**********
DISC SEVEN (THE RAVEN, DISC ONE) (2003) (50:53)
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
Edgar Allan Poe was a man who usually looked on the dark side of life, had more than a few less-than-healthy romantic and sexual obsessions, was known to dabble in dangerous drugs, and was fascinated with the possibilities of the English language, so it's no wonder why Lou Reed regards Poe as a kindred spirit. In his liner notes to the album The Raven, Reed touches on the parallels between their work when he writes, "I have reread and rewritten Poe to ask the same questions again. Who am I? Why am I drawn to do what I should not?...Why do we love what we cannot have? Why do we have a passion for exactly the wrong thing?" Reed's obsession with Poe's work found a creative outlet when visionary theatrical director Robert Wilson commissioned Reed to adapt Poe's works to music for a production called POE-Try, and The Raven collects the material Reed wrote for this project, as well as a number of dramatic interpretations of Poe's work, featuring performances by Willem Dafoe, Steve Buscemi, Elizabeth Ashley, Amanda Plummer, and others. The limited-edition two-disc version of The Raven gives a nearly equal balance to words and music; while the single-disc edition is dominated by Reed's songs, the double-disc set features a much greater number of spoken-word pieces, most of which have been filtered through Reed's imagination, with a more intense focus on sex, drugs, and conflict as a result. While the condensed version of The Raven sounds like one of the oddest and most audacious rock albums of recent memory, the complete edition feels more like a lengthy performance piece (albeit a rather unusual one), and while it lacks something in the way of a central narrative, the focus on the letter as well as the spirit of Poe's work seems a great deal clearer here. The pitch of the acting is sometimes a bit sharp (especially Dafoe, who seems to be projecting to the last row of the balcony), but the con brio performances certainly suit the tenor of the material and Poe's writing style. Musically, The Raven is all over the map, leaping from low-key acoustic pieces to full-bore, window-rattling rock & roll, with a number of stops along the way. Reed also touches more than casually on his own past as well, with new recordings of "The Bed" and "Perfect Day" added to the sequence, and for a man not known for his ability to collaborate well, The Raven is jam-packed with guest artists, including David Bowie, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Ornette Coleman, and Laurie Anderson, all of whom are used to their best advantage. The mix of ingredients on The Raven is heady, and the result is more than a little bizarre, but there's no mistaking the fact that Reed's heart and soul are in this music; even the most oddball moments bleed with passion and commitment, whether he's handing the vocal mic over to Buscemi for a faux-lounge number, conjuring up brutal guitar distortion while his band wails behind him, or confronting his fears and desires with just a piano to guide him. Truth to tell, Reed hasn't sounded this committed and engaged on record since Magic and Loss over a decade before; The Raven reaches for more than it can grasp, especially in its two-hours-plus expanded edition, and is dotted with experiments that don't work and ideas that don't connect with their surroundings. But the good stuff is strong enough that anyone who cares about Lou Reed's body of work, or Edgar Allan Poe's literary legacy, ought to give it a careful listen.
1 The Conqueror Worm 02:17
2 Overture 01:06
3 Old Poe 00:40
4 Prologue 04:49
5 Edgar Allan Poe 03:20
6 The Valley Of Unrest 02:26
7 Call On Me 02:07
8 The City In The Sea/Shadow 04:15
9 A Thousand Departed Friends 04:15
10 Change 02:18
11 The Fall Of The House Of Usher 08:44
12 The Bed 03:32
13 Perfect Day 03:27
14 The Raven 06:30
15 Balloon 01:01
DISC SEVEN (THE RAVEN, DISC TWO) (2003) (72:50)
1 Broadway Song 03:12
2 The Tell Tale Heart Pt. 1 02:24
3 Blind Rage 03:27
4 Tell Tale Heart Pt. 2 01:43
5 Burning Embers 03:22
6 Imp Of The Perverse 03:12
7 Vanishing Act 05:23
8 The Cask 06:41
9 Guilty (-Ltd. Edition) 02:45
10 Guilty 04:55
11 A Wild Being From Birth 05:34
12 I Wanna Know (The Pit And The Pendulum 06:58
13 Science Of The Mind 01:35
14 Annabel Lee/The Bells 01:41
15 Hop Frog 01:46
16 Every Frog Has His Day 01:06
17 Tripitena's Speech 02:19
18 Who Am I? (Tripitena's Song) 03:21
19 The Courtly Orangutans 01:41
20 Fire Music 02:44
21 Guardian Angel 06:51
All Tracks By Lou Reed
Laurie Anderson/Guest Artist, Poetry
Antony/Featured Artist
Elizabeth Ashley/Voices
Art Baron/Trombone
Steven Bernstein/Flugelhorn, Horn Arrangements, Slide Trumpet, Trumpet
The Blind Boys of Alabama/Vocals
David Bowie/Guest Artist, Vocals
Steve Buscemi/Guest Artist, Vocals
Patrick Carroll/Bass, Drum Programming
Ornette Coleman/Guest Artist, Sax (Alto)
Willem Dafoe/Guest Artist, Poetry
Russ Desalvo/Arranger, Guitar, Keyboards
Rob Mathes/String Arrangements
Anna McGarrigle/Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Kate McGarrigle/Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Amanda Plummer/Guest Artist
Mike Rathke/Guitar
Lou Reed/Arranger, Bass Guitar, Electronics, Guitar, Melody Arrangement, Vocals
Fernando Saunders/Bass Guitar
Jane Scarpantoni/Cello, Conductor, String Arrangements
Paul Shapiro/Sax (Alto), Sax (Baritone), Sax (Tenor)
Antoine Silverman/Violin
Tony Smith/Drums, Vocals (Background)
Marti Sweet/Violin
Rick Wake/Arranger
Shelley Woodworth/Bass, Vocals (Background)
Frank Wulff/Ebo, Hurdygurdy
**********
DISC EIGHT (ANIMAL SERENADE, DISC ONE) (2004) (73:10)
REVIEW/AMG
Mark Deming
Apparently the notion of Lou Reed reinterpreting the works of Edgar Allan Poe didn't strike a positive chord with many folks, given the chilly commercial and critical reception accorded to Reed's 2003 album The Raven, and it seems plenty of fans were no more enthusiastic about seeing the material performed in person, since the tour staged to support the album found Reed playing smaller venues than was his custom. And in both cases, the folks who took a rain check really missed something; while The Raven was genuinely flawed, it was also one of Reed's most ambitious and compelling albums in quite some time, and the subsequent live shows found Reed and his musicians in truly superb form. Animal Serenade, recorded during the Los Angeles date of the tour, is a striking two-plus hour document of Reed and a fine ensemble in full flight; Reed brought along a small but potent backing band -- bassist and sometimes percussionist Fernando Saunders, guitarist Mike Rathke, cellist Jane Scarpantoni, and backing vocalist Antony -- and the performances presented manage to merge the intimacy of a small-group show with the force and passion of a full-on rock gig. The takes on "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "Dirty Blvd." are both hypnotic and muscular, but the more subtle and measured interpretations of "Venus in Furs," "Sunday Morning," and "The Day John Kennedy Died" easily conjure up the same edgy conviction, and Reed's interplay with his group is marvelous. These folks don't simply back him up; there's a genuine sense of collaboration among the musicians that's one of the real defining points between good and great performances. Animal Serenade isn't the hardest rockin' live album Lou Reed has ever cut, but for the sheer commitment and power of these performances, it's in a dead heat with Live in Italy as Reed's finest concert recording, and makes clear that in his fifth decade in music, Lou can still deliver the goods -- and in some respects is actually getting better. A more than pleasant surprise, and truly fine listening.
1 Advice 02:07
2 Smalltown 06:04 (John Cale, Lou Reed)
3 Tell It To Your Heart 06:03
4 Men Of Good Fortune 04:27
5 How Do You Think It Feels 08:10
6 Vanishing Act 05:31
7 Ecstasy 07:09
8 The Day John Kennedy Died 04:04
9 Street Hassle 07:00
10 The Bed 05:15
11 Revien Cherie 07:12 (Fernando Saunders)
12 Venus In Furs 10:02
DISC EIGHT (ANIMAL SERENADE, DISC TWO) (2004) (55:02)
1 Dirty Blvd. 06:54
2 Sunday Morning 05:04 (John Cale, Lou Reed)
3 All Tomorrow's Parties 06:18
4 Call On Me 02:45
5 The Raven 09:33
6 Set The Twilight Reeling 09:08
7 Candy Says 06:04
8 Heroin 09:11
Tracks By Lou Reed, Except 1-2, 1-11, 2-2
Antony/Guest Artist, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Mike Rathke/Guitar, Guitar (Synthesizer)
Lou Reed/Guitar, Soloist, Vocals
Fernando Saunders/Bass Guitar, Drums, Guitar, Piccolo Bass, Scat, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Jane Scarpantoni/Cello, Guest Artist, Soloist
**********
BIOGRAPHY/AMG
Richie Unterberger
The career of Lou Reed defied capsule summarization. Like David Bowie (whom Reed directly inspired in many ways), he made over his image many times, mutating from theatrical glam rocker to strung-out junkie to avant-garde noiseman to straight rock & roller to your average guy. Few would deny Reed's immense importance and considerable achievements. As has often been written, he expanded the vocabulary of rock & roll lyrics into the previously forbidden territory of kinky sex, drug use (and abuse), decadence, transvestites, homosexuality, and suicidal depression. As has been pointed out less often, he remained committed to using rock & roll as a forum for literary, mature expression throughout his artistic life, without growing lyrically soft or musically complacent. By and large, he took on these challenging duties with uncompromising honesty and a high degree of realism. For these reasons, he was often cited as punk's most important ancestor. It's often overlooked, though, that he was equally skilled at celebrating romantic joy, and rock & roll itself, as he was at depicting harrowing urban realities. With the exception of Neil Young, no other star who rose to fame in the '60s continued to push himself so diligently into creating work that was, and remains, meaningful and contemporary.
Although Reed achieved his greatest success as a solo artist, his most enduring accomplishments were as the leader of the Velvet Underground in the '60s. If Reed had never made any solo records, his work as the principal lead singer and songwriter for the Velvets would have still ensured his stature as one of the greatest rock visionaries of all time. the Velvet Underground are discussed at great length in many other sources, but it's sufficient to note that the four studio albums they recorded with Reed at the helm are essential listening, as is much of their live and extraneous material. "Heroin," "Sister Ray," "Sweet Jane," "Rock and Roll," "Venus in Furs," "All Tomorrow's Parties," "What Goes On," and "Lisa Says" are just the most famous classics that Reed wrote and sang for the group. As innovative as the Velvets were at breaking lyrical and instrumental taboos with their crunching experimental rock, they were unappreciated in their lifetime. Five years of little commercial success was undoubtedly a factor in Reed leaving the group he had founded in August 1970, just before the release of their most accessible effort, Loaded. Although Reed's songs and streetwise, sing-speak vocals dominated the Velvets, he was perhaps more reliant upon his talented collaborators than he realized, or was even willing to admit in his latter years. The most talented of these associates was John Cale, who was apparently fired by Reed in 1968 after the Velvets' second album (although the pair subsequently worked together on various other projects).
Reed had a reputation of being a difficult man to work with for an extended period, and that made it difficult for his extensive solo oeuvre to compete with the standards of brilliance set by the Velvets. Nowhere was this more apparent than on his self-titled solo debut from 1971, recorded after he'd taken an extended hiatus from music, moving back to his parents' suburban Long Island home at one point. Lou Reed mostly consisted of flaccid versions of songs dating back to the Velvet days, and he could have really used the group to punch them up, as proved by the many outtake versions of these tunes that he actually recorded with the Velvet Underground (some of which didn't surface until about 25 years later).
Transformer
Reed got a shot in the arm (no distasteful pun intended) when David Bowie and Mick Ronson produced his second album, Transformer. A more energetic set that betrayed the influence of glam rock, it also included his sole Top 20 hit, "Walk on the Wild Side," and other good songs like "Vicious" and "Satellite of Love." It also made him a star in Britain, which was quick to appreciate the influence Reed had exerted on Bowie and other glam rockers. Reed went into more serious territory on Berlin (1973), its sweet orchestral production coating lyrical messages of despair and suicide. In some ways Reed's most ambitious and impressive solo effort, it was accorded a vituperative reception by critics in no mood for a nonstop bummer (however elegantly executed). Unbelievably, in retrospect, it made the Top Ten in Britain, though it flopped stateside.
Having been given a cold shoulder for some of his most serious (if chilling) work, Reed apparently decided he was going to give the public what it wanted. He had guitarists Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner give his music more of a pop-metal, radio-friendly sheen. More disturbingly, he decided to play up to the cartoon junkie role that some in his audience seemed eager to assign to him. Onstage, that meant shocking bleached hair, painted fingernails, and simulated drug injections. On record, it led to some of his most careless performances. One of these, the 1974 album Sally Can't Dance, was also his most commercially successful, reaching the Top Ten, thus confirming both Reed's and the audience's worst instincts. As if to prove he could still be as uncompromising as anyone, he unleashed the double album Metal Machine Music, a nonstop assault of electronic noise. Opinions remain divided as to whether it was an artistic statement, a contract quota-filler, or a slap in the face to the public.
Later, Reed never behaved as outrageously (in public and in the studio) as he did in the mid-'70s, although there was plenty of excitement in the decades that followed. When he decided to play it relatively straight, sincere, and hard-nosed, he could produce affecting work in the spirit of his best vintage material (parts of Coney Island Baby and Street Hassle). At other points, he seemed not to be putting too much effort into any aspect of his songs ("Rock and Roll Heart"). With 1978's Take No Prisoners, he delivered one of the weirdest concert albums of all time, more of a comedy monologue (which not too many people laughed hard at) than a musical document. Reed had always been an enigma, but no one questioned the serious intent of his work with the Velvet Underground. As a soloist, it was getting impossible to tell when he was serious, or whether he even wished to be taken seriously anymore.
At the end of the '70s, The Bells set the tone for most of his future work. Reed would settle down; he would play it straight; he would address serious, adult concerns, including heterosexual romance, with sincerity. Not a bad idea, but though the albums that followed were much more consistent in tone, they remained erratic in quality and, worse, could occasionally be quite boring. The recruitment of Robert Quine as lead guitarist helped, and The Blue Mask (1982) and New Sensations (1984) were fairly successful, although in retrospect they didn't deserve the raves they received from some critics at the time. Quine, however, would also find Reed too difficult to work with for an extended period. New York (1989) heralded both a commercial and critical renaissance for Reed, and in truth it was his best work in quite some time, although it didn't break any major stylistic ground. Reed worked best when faced with a challenge, which arrived when he collaborated with former partner John Cale in 1990 on a song cycle for the recently deceased Andy Warhol. In both its recorded and stage incarnations, this was the most experimental work that Reed had devised in quite some time.
Magic and Loss (1992) returned him to the more familiar straight rock territory of New York, again to critical raves. The re-formation of the Velvet Underground for a 1993 European live tour could not be considered an unqualified success, however. European audiences were thrilled to see the legends in person, but critical reaction to the shows was mixed, and critical reaction to the live record was tepid. More distressingly, old conflicts reared their head within the band once again, and the reunion ended before it had a chance to get to America. Cale and Reed at this point seem determined never to work with each other again (the death of Velvet Underground guitarist Sterling Morrison in 1995 seemed to permanently ice prospects of more VU projects). In 1996, the surviving Velvet Underground members were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, performing a newly penned song for their fallen comrade, Morrison. Reed closed the '90s with an album that saw him explore relationships, 1996's Set the Twilight Reeling (many speculated that the album was biographical and focused on his union with performance artist Laurie Anderson), which didn't turned out to be one of Reed's more critically acclaimed releases. He also found time to compose music for the Robert Wilson opera Timerocker, and in 1998, released the "unplugged" album Perfect Night: Live in London. The same year, Reed was the subject of a superb installment of the PBS American Masters series that chronicled his entire career (eventually released as a DVD, titled Rock and Roll Heart).
The year 2000 saw Reed's first release for Reprise Records, Ecstasy, a glorious return to raw and straightforward rock, a tour de force that many agreed was his finest work since New York. Another collaboration with Robert Wilson, POE-try, followed in 2001 and continued its worldwide stage run through the year. Including new music by Reed and words adapted from the macabre texts of Edgar Allan Poe, POE-try led to Reed's highly ambitious next album, The Raven. Animal Serenade, a double-disc set recorded at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles during his 2003 world tour, was issued in spring 2004. The live effort was Reed's tribute of sorts to his celebrated Rock N Roll Animal concert album, which was released 30 years before. In 2007, Reed released Hudson River Wind Meditations, a four-song experimental sound collage that celebrated both the best and worst aspects of Metal Machine Music. In 2011, he joined forces with heavy metal legends Metallica to create Lulu, an album of fresh studio material. Written by Reed, with James Hetfield et al. providing input on arrangements and dynamics, Lulu blended Lou Reed's trademark monotone vocals with the power and ferocity of Metallica's musicianship. However, Reed underwent a liver transplant at the Cleveland Clinic in April 2013, and although he subsequently proclaimed his strength and intention to return to performing and songwriting, he died of end-stage liver disease at his home on Long Island in late October of that year.
**********
BIO/WIKIPEDIA
**********
TO THE TOP
**********